A COMPARISON OF JAPANESE, TAIWANESE, AND SINGAPOREAN TEACHING STRATEGIES IN MATHEMATICS

In recent years several Asian countries, such as Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore, have achieved dramatic improvement in their economic status. Interestingly, their students also demonstrate excellence in many international mathematics comparison studies. For example, all of the Asian countries listed above frequently rank in the top three of several of the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). In the 1970’s and 1980’s, Japan was often ranked first place but gradually replaced by Hong Kong and Singapore. More recently, Taiwan advanced to first place for the 2007 TIMSS in eighth grade mathematics.

There are several reasons for the impressive performance of these Asian countries: cultural values, educational policies, parental involvement, and student motivation. Most Asian countries are heavily influenced by Confucianism, which stresses the importance of respect for scholars and scholarship. Students, in general, are motivated to learn and excel.

Aside from cultural differences, one important factor that should not be overlooked is teaching strategies. In fact, it can have a more profound impact on mathematics achievement than cultural factors. Many of these Asian countries use the Constructivist approach. For example, after posing a mathematics problem, teachers usually ask students to present alternative methods of solving the problem before giving students the answers. This is the opposite of the traditional Behaviorist approach of teaching in which teachers demonstrate how to solve the problem with little class discussion.

The focus of this presentation is to illustrate how Japanese, Taiwanese, and Singaporean teachers teach word problems. For example, the author will use diagrams, musical scales, or paper folding to illustrate how to teach the concept of fractions or percentages for elementary school students. The intention is to provide insight on how these East Asian teachers teach students how to attack problems - in particular, how to obtain clues that determine the choice of a particular operation, such as division or multiplication.